My grandma lives on Lake Simcoe and there are primarily only carp and zebra mussels in the water. Having visited frequently over the years, I had gotten used to their presence. Then one year all the carp got a virus and died. Literally hundreds of them washed up, they absolutely littered the entire shore. The city decided they didn’t want to deal with the tremendous amount of fish corpses that continued to wash up and said they would not take away any of the dead carp. Then the bodies just kept piling up until the stench of fish was so overwhelming we could not go outside. We ended up playing a lot of card games that summer.
Now, when I go to visit my grandma on Lake Simcoe, all I can smell is dead carp. I found out later that it was apparently because of the koi herpesvirus. There are still millions of zebra mussels though.
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As of 2024, the Great Lakes Guide will be transitioning to Biinaagami.org. Biinaagami is a multimedia, change-provoking initiative rooted in Indigenous knowledge aiming to uplift voices and to connect people with their watershed.